A testimonial from Federico Faggin, designer of the 4004 and developer of its enabling technology

The Historical Significance of the Busicom Calculator Engineering Prototype
The historical importance of this engineering prototype – the only one in existence - is that it is powered by the first microprocessor ever produced and by the other 3 integrated circuits of the MCS-4 family that Federico Faggin designed. This engineering prototype was the successful test bed for the first commercial application of the Intel 4004. We kept it in our home for 25 years before we gifted it to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, where it is now displayed.

When Federico joined Intel in April 1970, the MCS-4 project was just an idea, a block architecture, (with no logic design, no circuit design and no design methodology) and it was 6 months behind the unrealistic development schedule promised to Busicom. Federico developed a new schedule and managed to respect it by working 70-80 hour weeks for 11 months. The engineering prototype was a personal present to Federico Faggin from Busicom’s president Mr. Yoshio Kojima in grateful recognition of his successful leadership of the MCS-4 project.

Photograph of Faggin with the original engineering
prototype of the Busicom desktop printing calculator.

We took pictures of each member of our family holding the Busicom Calculator Engineering Prototype as a keepsake the day before Dr. Bernard Peuto came to our house on September 4, 1996, as an emissary to receive the calculator we promised to the Computer History Museum where it is now displayed. This is a picture of our daughter Marzia who was born a few weeks before Federico started his work at Intel as leader of the MCS-4 project

The Busicom Engineering PrototypeThis is a picture of the original engineering prototype of the
Busicom desktop printing calculator, the world’s first commercial product to
use a microprocessor. The microcomputer that powered the calculator used five
4001’s, two 4002’s, three 4003’s and the 4004 CPU. Faggin donated the one and only engineering prototype calculator to the Computer History
Museum in Silicon Valley in 1996.